Who was Achille Lauro?
He was a wheeling-dealing shipping tycoon, flamboyant politician, long-time mayor of Naples and, for a time, president of the Naples soccer club. Born the fifth of six children into a small ship-owning family in Piano di Sorrento on June 16, 1887, Lauro, not a good student, managed to get a diploma as ship’s master after returning from a traumatic stint at sea where his father had sent him, aged 14, as punishment for dallying with one of the family’s maids.
